What could be more bizarre than an early morning TV discussion program and phone-in about where the capital of the country is located? Except, that is, the present government policy, inherited from 50 years of KMT misrule, of placing it in another country.
What prompts these musings is Premier Yu Shyi-kun's response on Friday to DPP Legislator Cho Jung-tai (
Of course, Chen is unlikely to do any of this, and we can't help but wonder whether this doesn't in itself focus on a fundamental oversight of Chen's government, which is that so much time has been spent on futile political battles when so much could have been done administratively to change Taiwan's cultural agenda. A complete housecleaning of the education curriculum to get rid of reunificationist fantasy would be a start. Why, as Trong Chai (
This problem with the high-school curriculum is simply indicative of a wider failing of the DPP's vision, namely its lack of a revolutionary ideology. We do not mean of course that the DPP should have adopted some bizarre political agenda such as Maoism. What we do mean is that it needed to have a more dynamic vision of what change outside the merely political was necessary in Taiwan. A state contains more than political institutions. One of the strongest parts of any society are the social institutions that work to propagate the ideology of the ruling class -- what Louis Althusser has called "ideological state apparatuses," which include the media, educational, cultural and religious institutions. The KMT -- which, incidentally, does, or did, have a revolutionary background and as a result understood the importance of these things -- has monopolized these apparatuses for half a century to disseminate the colonial KMT's version of Taiwan's history and culture. And to a great extent it, along with its "blue camp" fellow travellers, still does.
The problem here is that this means that the DPP is always having to argue its cause in a debate framed by the assumptions of its enemies, since these are the assumptions of Taiwan in general. In not wanting to rock the boat, perhaps, because of its origins, not understanding how the boat needed to be rocked, the DPP has left far too much of this status quo in place.
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
RSS